Rob Tourtelot
- a good story, by definition, has to be smarter than the person who wrote it. Because if it’s less smart, that means the writer wasn’t writing a story but assembling a piece of Ikea furniture. Most of the masterpieces I’ve encountered were smarter than their creators, and often more decent and purely good than them, too.
from So you think you can tell? by Etgar Keret
- Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”
from George Saunders's Advice to Graduates
- GEORGE SAUNDERS: I think ultimately it would be, are you benefiting the people in proximity to you? And truly benefiting them. And that in itself is, how would you know?
EZRA KLEIN: Yeah, how would you know is, I think, often a harder problem that we give it credit for. Why in proximity?
GEORGE SAUNDERS: Well, I think that’s the place to start. And s... See morefrom Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews George Saunders (Published 2021)
- I think in a lot of these Eastern systems, the delusion is that we’re trapped inside this little machine that thinks it’s central, and permanent, and all-important and is always thinking it’s about its little victory narrative. But when you step out of it for a second, you see that it’s just a temporary construction of neurology, or karma, or whate... See more
from Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews George Saunders (Published 2021)
- if we look at ourselves, we’re kind of set up to be these little Darwinian survivors. So we’re given this really cool sensory apparatus, and a brain, and everything. And you know, that stuff is there to help us propagate the species. And the intersection between our perceptions, and understanding, and what’s actually true are pretty small and prett... See more
from Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews George Saunders (Published 2021)
- “... This aliveness is always here. We don’t have to work to get it. It is ever-present. Seeking enlightenment is a form of postponement, postponing what can only be realized now ...” ~ Joan Tollifson
from Can We Embrace "Yes Buts?" Painting The Sidewalk Joan Tollifson - Stillness Speaks by Joan Tollifson
Compassionate actions
- Yet the fundamental loss remains—it doesn’t just dissipate—and, in a strange way, I think it can become a magnet for other losses. We come to see we are all simply creatures carrying around our ever-deepening loss. Small griefs seem to collect around the bigger primary grief. I think this realization allows us to become a true human being.
from Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life by Amanda Petrusich
- You’re right that profound grief quickly pushes you away from both certitude and indifference, which are unproductive feelings—
That’s right. Certitude and indifference. They’re the problems with this world.from Nick Cave on the Fragility of Life by Amanda Petrusich